Lonely is the Night
by Pollux Unbound
Summary: Four Shinigami, Matsumoto, Shuuhei, Renji and Ichigo, find themselves in a pub where they disclose among each other their hearts’ contents. Four mouths sigh in unison. Four hearts break as one. Oneshot. RenBya. ShuSoi. MatsuGin or GinRangiku. IchiRen.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Bleach; Genius Kubo Tite does.

**Warning**: This has NO plot whatsoever. This is unedited, so pardon me for the mistakes.

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It was a night like many others, precisely those evenings which were only individualized from one another by the varying and irregular pattern in which the wind moved. Kurosaki Ichigo and Renji Abarai flitted along the alleys in firm treads, exchanging brief words uncharacteristic of their boisterous selves.

"You sure you wanna drink?" The redhead asked in a reluctant and cautious tone.

"Dead sure."

They took their paces in silence as they advanced in a determined fashion to the local bar. It came as a mutual agreement when Renji felt it was growing too large to conceal and too heavy a burden to bear alone that he badly needed someone to talk to. Ichigo happened to have the solution to his problem. "Let's have a drink," the minor offered, as if these words were sheer consolation.

They took their seats in the quiet corner of the pub, and it wasn't until several minutes had passed that one of them decided to pierce through the tense silence.

"Renji, mate, you okay?"

The lieutenant did not answer immediately. There was something weighing down the pit of his stomach with a force so brute that he felt he would never accomplish real words. He opened his mouth as if to commence a complex recitation, but before actual sound could issue from his throat a chunk of radish cake came swooning on his forehead, only to bounce off weakly with an awkward splatter.

"Who in bloody fuck—"

"Yosh, Abarai, Kurosaki." It was Hisagi Shuuhei, vice-captain of the captain-deprived 9th Division. He was seated two tables away from them, and across him was a woman of remarkable curves; the vice-captain of the 10th Division, Matsumoto Rangiku.

The pair scudded across the obstructed floor to make a final stop at Ichigo and Renji's table without awaiting hints of invitation.

"You two dating now?" The redhead asked with unconcealed annoyance from the vestiges of radish cake still clinging in his tone of voice.

"Nah. Say, join us. We're having this talk. You know, getting to know each other better and all." Matsumoto said.

"We can see that. I mean, that's what _we_ vice-captains do every weekend." Renji said pointedly, and with traces of sarcasm at that too.

"Yeah, but I guess _this_ is not one of those times." The 10th Division lieutenant answered as she shot a look at Shuuhei as though seeking aid for a more sophisticated explanation.

"Why should this vice-captain convention be any different from the rest before it?" The Ichigo inquired.

"Well, that's because you two are gonna tell us what your problems are." Shuuhei replied, evidently pleased with his unrestrained fondness to prying.

"Huh?" The two asked in unison.

"You touched down in a dimly-lit pub, looking as though you had the world strapped against your backs, when on normal occasions you'd bring along with you the entire pack—"

"Well, that happens to be _your_ case too, if you still haven't noticed. Normally, Kira, Ayasegawa, Madarame, and Iba would make the line-up, I, included..." Renji could not finish the remainder of his sentence. The 9th and 10th Division lieutenants sank into the vacant seats no sooner than they heaved identical sighs.

"Who's first?" Matsumoto asked.

"First what?" Ichigo asked her.

"First one to tell his story. It's what we do in pubs other than drink away our sorrows or bliss."

Ichigo's heart sank. His insides were lurching in dangerous motions. He wasn't exactly ignorant about tell-tale practices, but in the past, he hardly had enough experience of such to be fully accustomed to them now, and the fact that what he was keeping largely to himself wasn't altogether shallow…

"I'd rather listen to y'all as you unburden your chests with your secrets." He said.

"Don't be stupid. You'll come by last; Renji goes first—" Matsumoto could not continue,

"Why me?! Ladies first!"

"Lady's choice." Matsumoto answered flatly.

"Hisagi-sempai it is." Renji said.

"That's unfair." Shuuhei replied.

"Fire away, Hisagi-san." Ichigo added.

There was a sordid sigh which further amplified the humorlessness of the air around the grim gathering.

Hisagi Shuuhei felt it justified to avoid the three's hungry eyes, for they threaten to hold him fixed with iron grip. He cast his glance here and there as though he was being pursued by strange anxieties. He spoke, slowly and with utmost sternness,

"I'm—what I'm about to tell you, promise me, is to be kept only among us four, and if I learn one of you ratting about it on someone other than this lot, I swear on my honor that I'll personally deliver you on a direct path to hell." He looked at them one by one with a deep, penetrating glare. He halted to a pause, which hinted at infinity. At long last, he continued, "I'm—Jesus—I may be in love with my current, part-time, substitute, commanding officer."

Renji and Ichigo stared at each other.

"With Captain Tousen?" The redhead asked disbelievingly.

"Moron. He said, 'current, part-time, substitute, commanding officer', You don't expect Captain Tousen to multi-task by juggling Aizen's biddings and Commander Yamamoto's orders at the same time." Matsumoto snapped.

"Oh…who's your acting captain at the moment, sempai?"

"Soi Fong." Shuuhei muttered, his eyes veering out of their circle, avoidant.

"Oh…"

"Oh…" Ichigo echoed.

"I see…what are you gonna do about it?" Rangiku asked, her face glistening with childish enthusiasm.

"Nothing. She doesn't know a shit about it, and really, what's the point?"

"The point? You keeping it in silence may have just marred the dawning of a love that's great—" Matsumoto burst forth with ardent conviction.

"I'm telling you, Rangiku-san, there's no point. She, Soi Fong-taichou, reciprocating what I feel is a distant dream; it can't exist here nor anytime ahead—"

"And why is that?"

"Because…" Hisagi faltered. His head swiveled to face where Renji was. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding linking their gazes. Renji spoke,

"Because there are rumors of marital engagement between _my_ captain and Soi Fong…taichou." Renji said in such a gloomy manner that it seemed as though something deathly had perched upon them.

Shuuhei could only nod in feigned reverence, a bitter agreement. Matsumoto and Ichigo received the information with gaping mouths.

Matsumoto started, "Oh…but it's not, you know, too late, is it? I mean, this marriage may just be some binding contract to maintain the noble lineage, a shallow contract—"

"Rangiku-san, this—what I feel for her is just the type of desire which one shouldn't _dare_ to act upon. There's nothing in it; chemistry, mutuality, you name it. It's purely one-sided, and it will always be such even as the greatest of tragedy or miracle befalls or so long as we exist. It is completely inconsequential, and though it has all the pain and disappointment of the acceptance of something unsatisfying, it is what it is. As such, there's nothing more to do about it than to accept it and live with it. I admit defeat. Kuchiki-taichou is perhaps the strongest, noblest, fairest that now walks among the living and the dead, and what am I next to him, frankly?" He finished.

There ensued a weighty silence that kept them fastened on their seats, immovable. Ichigo spoke at length,

"You can at least try."

"I can, but I shouldn't. There are just things that are worth trying. I mean, seeing her alone is worth my whole life. But executing what your heart desires chooses with much delicacy the right time, the right place, and the right manner. In some rare and extremely unfortunate occasions, all three are unachievable. In my case, they are. On the bright side, there's _nothing_ as beautiful as sorrow. You understand what I'm saying, don't you? So let us leave the subject be and do try to make me feel better with other offers of comfort. Say, Rangiku-san, your turn." Shuuhei finished in a methodical and fluid manner; he might have simply been reading from a page.

Rangiku was rather reluctant to release her interests at Shuuhei's plight. Nevertheless and not long after, a distinct discomfort arrested her, making her forget whatever topic that held her mind.

"So, we know you've had countless troubles pecking at your comfort ever since Gin flew off with Aizen, so tell us about them." Renji told her.

"Ha ha…" It was as if she lapsed into a profound listlessness. Her eyes traveled far adrift, and a heavy sigh reduced her countenance to a wearisome solemnity. "I—I'm completely fine. It's just that things could have fared much better…I—oh, you guys, don't look at me like that!"

"Go on. You alone know Ichimaru Gin well enough for a lasting judgment, and as much as we want to wring his neck at the moment, you alone can grope down to the fathomless depths of his being." Hisagi egged her.

She continued, "I know my place. I exist for the Gotei 13, and as Shinigami, we are to smite anyone who'd go against Soul Society, without distinction, or so we must. This duty, can it push me to ignore recognition? I fear, when the time comes, that hesitation will get the best of me. I may fail if I may be faced against Gin to strike him, to hurt him." Her stare was set fixed on the table's surface as though it was the living, breathing listener to which her voice was directed.

Renji could only listen with dismayed comprehension. He spoke,

"Our Shinigami vows are never radically repressive, but should anything assault what they stand for, our duty is to dissolve whatever bond of relationship that may dissuade us to abide by such orders. Rangiku-san, forgive me for sounding most bold, but do you love Ichimaru Gin? I mean, did you ever?"

She fastened her gaze at the speaker with a calculating reluctance. Everyone else was absorbed by the newly introduced issue.

"Before I answer that, you must understand that this person we're talking about has shown he was capable of the most horrid evil and betrayal imaginable. But above all, I must inform you that he is also capable of such affection common among great men, or so he was once, in a time long past dead. We—we didn't just grow up together; we built our worlds from shambles_, together_. He was gone many times, for long, long times, but he never once failed to find where my footsteps treaded. When our routes faced separation in the last, somehow I knew he had always looked at me as that special person who was ever more than the whole world to him, for he was to me, too. Somehow, a place in time still belongs to us, unmolested. And yes, I might have been in love with him, and as obtusely sickening as it may sound, I suppose I love him still." She finished, and her speech was especially remarked by a dreamy softness; she might have been talking face to face with the former 3rd Division Captain.

The three men reflected on her words in serious contemplation. It was Ichigo who spoke first,

"Do—do you think he loves you too? That he ever has?"

"I suppose your question came too late for anything in the world to answer. It _doesn't _matter, does it? He's gone…into thin air."

"Do you hate him now?" Renji asked.

"I—it's—I don't know. It's beyond hatred, beyond contempt or pure loathing. It's disappointment beyond heart break— no, it's something else. I feel defeated, cheated, because I _understand_ his place. I understand why he had to leave; to pursue his evil ends and inflict damage on this organization he never loved. I understand it all. But I can't accept it; no one can. It's strictly evil in all aspects. Still, I understand, and that's what I hate about it. So I ask, did he really have to go? Couldn't he have stayed here… here with me? Was it too impossible?" She said all these in a calm and distant voice as though she was whispering farewells over a coffin. Still, the moisture in her eyes remained scattered.

"Are you okay, Matsumoto?" Hisagi asked out of pure concern.

"Yeah, perfectly fine. I—I guess it's Renji's turn to speak now!" She answered in an obvious attempt to clear away the remnants of bitter thoughts in her head, as if what she had just currently relayed was a mere negligible account.

They dismissed her sudden shift to a bubbly demeanor by steering their heads at the redhead's direction.

"Time to shoot." Ichigo urged him on.

"I—can we do this some other time—"

"Stop wriggling out. Speak, comrade." Hisagi said firmly, even threateningly.

"But it's utterly unspeakable—"

"Hisagi-san and I just divulged those which haunt us menacingly, thus it's only fair to share this naked feeling, this exposure." Matsumoto said beseechingly.

Renji was forced to go deeper in his struggle. The other three bore down on him, conferring like traitors against a single victim; him.

"I'm—make a guess. I can't say it. It's too absurd, too unlovely to be uttered or heard. Just don't make it come out of my mouth; making me confess is as good as wrenching my guts out without bothering with anesthetics, so have mercy, please."

"Fair enough." Hisagi said.

"What? Guesswork? With the way this bloke's mind works, how can we hit the target within the span of our lives?" Ichigo pressed in full opposition of Shuuhei's condescension.

"Then I'll go with my speculation first." Hisagi proposed.

"No, let me—" Ichigo argued,

"My guess is right on the dot, I assure—"

"No, allow me; you won't regret—"

"Ladies first." Matsumoto's voice shot through the competing banters.

Renji, upon hearing her, mounted on an obstinately vigilant guard, through which, it seemed, nothing could penetrate.

Rangiku continued, and it was as though not the most aggressive of oppositions could dissuade her as she spoke slowly and with thorough carefulness,

"Here, Renji, I think I know what you're keeping. You must know that there's no way I'm judging you or your preferences. If anything, I deem it rather beautiful and worth certain and considerable sacrifices—"

"What's your suspicion?" Renji asked.

She craned her neck, drawing her pretty face closer to his, as if to tear through the veil of his defenses. His confidence in the impermeability of his secret hobbled away from him under the other's scrutiny.

"Renji you're—forgive me for knowing. I never would've wanted to be the one to disclose this—but you're in love with _your_ captain, with Kuchiki-taichou." She finished. There was a hopeful ring in her voice that seemed to imply that what she said was suffused with a wonderful promise and had the solidity of an established statement that expected no reply or confirmation.

The redhead sat in a stiff, cold terror. The other two gaped at him with a silent astonishment that suggested no knowledge of extenuation. One of them stood on the brink of devastation upon Renji's silent but obvious admittance.

"I—yes, I think I am. I think it's something that has always been there but made itself known in the most miserable setting. It lit the way to a barren dead end—a good for nothing something." Renji managed to say despite the thickness of the lump that had accumulated in his throat. He pursued, "Misery, gloom, pain, despair, hopelessness, you want to know firsthand how these loosely-used words elevate to precise actuality? Try supporting me in my—my feelings for taichou and you'll get perfect definitions. You know what this is; it's the kind of love—whatever the shit you call it—that should be forbidden at all cost. It's stupid, pathetic, the very inspiration for all sorts of ridicules and bickering." He shook his head in a weary, powerless disdain that had unquestionably passed beyond languishing.

At length, the Shuuhei employed his voice to use, "I would not go as far as saying what you hold for him is sacred, but, mate, what are differences anyway? Aren't they just illusions, mere distorting impediments to our visions and conceptions?" He ventured these remarks without intentions of encouragement, but rather of enlightenment.

"You yourself, some 30 minutes ago, have demonstrated the extents of the cruelty and tyranny of unrequited love's godlessness. Don't egg me on to nourish this humble, next-to-nonexistent hope of reciprocation, sempai."

"Not that. Differences, mutuality, incompatibility, reciprocation, isolation, and togetherness, these negative and affirmative elements, what _are_ they, really? Can't you continue to feel what you feel with/without them? Are they necessary to enjoy/endure the love you hold for him? Their absence/presence, do they spell ruin or simply inconvenience? Can't you just forego it, regardless of how he sees you? I know it's too pitiable a surrender, too painful a submission, and too final a deliverance, but, Renji, in our cases, yours and mine, we're simply not given a goddamn option; it's all too linear."

"I guess we're not. Taichou and your current taichou deserve each other as much as Aizen and the gallows deserve one another. But sometimes you just have to ask, in the face of the world's vastness and the innumerability of its creatures, why oh fucking why do you have to fall for such an impossible person under the most incongruent and unfavorable fixed situation? And that all you can do is to show reverence to it, because it's too permanent and absolute for any force to alter." Renji replied as he vied against his complaints to put his dignity in due proportion.

"Did it ever occur to you that love comes first, that its shallow coincidental nature lies in the fact that you are a world apart from him, _not_ in the fact that you love him? That he is the only person with whom you can ever possibly fall in love and it just so happens that both of you are male? For it couldn't have been anyone else even given that you've met all the people in the world."

There ensued a contaminated silence, insolent and unsparing. They felt as though they were forced to breathe an air that reeked solely of gloom.

"It's that miserable, isn't it? Only that all its eventuality and immutability render it acceptable in the end in spite of its destructiveness. I guess…I guess this is what they call love." Renji finished in an unsteady, condescending, and defeated tone of voice. He continued, "Well, this has gone long enough to last me three sleepless nights. Now that you know, can we shift our attentions to the last confessor?"

Ichigo felt Renji's sorrow slow-course towards him to inflict him heavier damage, to own him.

Matsumoto nodded in a contrived agreement. Hisagi muttered a faint 'okay' out of modesty. The orange-head, without knowing what to make of his approaching turn, stammered,

"I—I'm just your regular 15-year-old kid; I've no tales to narrate as fanciful, heart-breaking, and moving as yours, and, er, spare me, really; there's nothing to juice out of me—"

"Really? How are you faring with the Kuchiki girl?" Hisagi leered.

"No, make that, 'what's up with you and Orihime-chan'?" Matsumoto piped up.

"I—I haven't thought of that—"

"But there is_ something_, absolutely?" Renji inquired in sheer fascination.

"I guess so, but er I'm currently too busy saving the world and backing up Soul Society's ass, so I hardly have the time to choose—"

"So you are indeed planning to choose between them?" Shuuhei interposed.

"Yeah—no—I don't know! I'm too young to be presented with such complex—"

"But _who_ is on the upper-hand?" Rangiku dismissed his futile excuses.

Ichigo sighed resignedly.

"No one is. They're both wonderfully lovable in all aspects. It's hard. I don't think that with the amount of time I've spent with them renders me in the least qualified to determine who the right person is. I'm only fifteen after all."

"Oh…"

"Oh…"

"Oh…"

"So, guys, let's call this a night and wash down our grievances for our misfortunes with ample sleep." Ichigo proposed.

Tired and sleepy as they all were, all they could give in response was a gruff sound of acquiescence.

"Not a word to anyone, okay?" Hisagi demanded assurance.

"Not a word." Renji repeated.

"I swear to my soul." Ichigo reassured.

"Consider it done." Matsumoto said.

They parted, mumbling cordialities to one another before braving their separate routes in firm treads. They scattered at last with only their deep, individual musings to take them home.

One set of feet trudged in the same pace as that of a pair climbing a road that ascended unceasingly.

Kurosaki Ichigo watched Renji Abarai's back as it was gradually reduced in size toward an unseen vanishing point. The orange-head stood forlorn and unmoving. Only when the redhead's figure had finally plunged into utter disappearance did he speak, with only his own ears to hear, "Try to hold me in your mind Renji, even for once."

And he turned around to recommence his steps. That was when four hearts lost the threads that bound each of them dependently intact. All at once, they crumbled like solid walls in demolition. All in the exact, same, swift second under one proud, indifferent, inhospitable, and black sky.

**END**

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